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OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

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Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#141

Post by sunnybeetroot »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #71
extr wrote: post #56

IMO other than the Microsoft IP issue, I think the biggest thing that has shifted since this acquisition was first in the works is Claude Code has absolutely exploded. Forking an IDE and all the expense that comes with that feels like a waste of effort, considering the number of free/open source CLI agentic tools that are out there. Let's review the current state of things: - Terminal CLI agents are several orders of…

Some excellent points. On “add selection to chat”, I just want to add that the Claude Code VS code extension automatically passes the current selection to the model. :) I am genuinely curious if any Cursor or Windsurf users who have also tried Claude Code could speak to why they prefer the IDE-fork tools? I’ve only ever used Claude Code myself - what am I missing?

I can roll back to different checkpoints with Cursor easily. Maybe CC has it but the fact that I haven’t found it after using it daily is an example of Cursor having a better UX for me.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#142

Post by metadat »

se4u wrote: post #134
metadat wrote: post #21

It's another Character.ai situation [0]. Unfortunate for any employees who aren't founders or researchers, as they don't get any payout or a nice new job from this exit structure. In fact they lose their whole time invested at the company. What a harsh time to work for an AI startup as a rank and file employee! I wonder how the founders justify going along with it inside their mind. [0] Character.ai CEO Noam Shazeer…

FYI, It wasn't taken the money and leave, a lot of them got absorbed into GDM. Source: I was in GDM when character was acquired.

Do you mean Google Deep Mind? Curious what use deep mind had for the leftovers (kubernetes and web scraping experts, etc)?

Otherwise why not merge all of engineering into ElGoog?

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#143

Post by didibus »

asdev wrote: post #129
virgildotcodes wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claude Code is totally different paradigm. You don't edit your files directly so there is no tab autocomplete. It's a chat session. There are IDE integrations where you can run it in a terminal session while perusing the files through your IDE, but it's not powering any autocomplete there AFAIK.

are people viewing file diffs in the terminal? surely people aren't just vibing code changes in

Yes, it shows you the file diff. But generally, the workflow is that you git commit a checkpoint, then let it make all the changes it wants freely, then in your IDE, review what has changed since previous commit, iterate the prompts/make your own adjustments to the code, and when you like it, git commit.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#144

Post by bionhoward »

extr wrote: post #56

IMO other than the Microsoft IP issue, I think the biggest thing that has shifted since this acquisition was first in the works is Claude Code has absolutely exploded. Forking an IDE and all the expense that comes with that feels like a waste of effort, considering the number of free/open source CLI agentic tools that are out there. Let's review the current state of things: - Terminal CLI agents are several orders of…

does claude code have a privacy mode with zero data retention?

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#145

Post by davidclark »

extr wrote: post #56

IMO other than the Microsoft IP issue, I think the biggest thing that has shifted since this acquisition was first in the works is Claude Code has absolutely exploded. Forking an IDE and all the expense that comes with that feels like a waste of effort, considering the number of free/open source CLI agentic tools that are out there. Let's review the current state of things: - Terminal CLI agents are several orders of…

Is this $900M ARR a reliable number?

Their base is $20/mth. That would equal 3.75M people paying a sub to Cursor.

If literally everyone is on their $200/mth plan, then that would be 375K paid users.

There’s 50M VS Code + VS users (May 2025). [1] 7% of all VS Code users having switched to Cursor does not match my personal circle of developers. 0.7% . . . Maybe? But, that would be if everyone using Cursor were paying $200/month.

Seems impossibly high, especially given the number of other AI subscription options as well.

[1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/blog/celebrating-50-million-d...

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#146

Post by lunarcave »

extr wrote: post #56

IMO other than the Microsoft IP issue, I think the biggest thing that has shifted since this acquisition was first in the works is Claude Code has absolutely exploded. Forking an IDE and all the expense that comes with that feels like a waste of effort, considering the number of free/open source CLI agentic tools that are out there. Let's review the current state of things: - Terminal CLI agents are several orders of…

Strictly speaking about large, complex, sprawling codebases, I don't think you can beat the experience that an IDE + coding agent brings with a terminal-based coding agent.

Auto-regressive nature of these things mean that errors accumulate, and IDEs are well placed to give that observability to the human, than a coding agent. I can course correct more easily in an IDE with clear diffs, coding navigation, than following a terminal timeline.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#147

Post by didibus »

submeta wrote: post #105

I went from Emacs to VS Code, then to Cursor, next to Claude Code, which is so good that I feel like I am having half a dozen junior devs at my fingertips, 24/7. Since Claude Code is cli based, I reviewed my cli toolset: Migrated from iTerm2 to Ghostty and Tmux, from Cursor to NeoVim (my God is it good!). Just had a 14h workday with this tooling. It’s so good that I complete the work of weeks and months within days!…

> I don’t review files that much anymore

You don't review the code? Just test it works?

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#148

Post by teruakohatu »

adamoshadjivas wrote: post #76
extr wrote: post #56

IMO other than the Microsoft IP issue, I think the biggest thing that has shifted since this acquisition was first in the works is Claude Code has absolutely exploded. Forking an IDE and all the expense that comes with that feels like a waste of effort, considering the number of free/open source CLI agentic tools that are out there. Let's review the current state of things: - Terminal CLI agents are several orders of…

Agreed on everything. Just to add, not only anthropic is offering CC at like a 500% loss, they restricted sonnet/opus 4 access to windsurf, and jacked up their enterprise deal to Cursor. The increase in price was so big that it forced cursor to make that disastrous downgrade to their plans. I think only way Cursor and other UX wrappers still win is if on device models or at least open source models catch up in the ne…

> CC at like a 500% loss

Do you have a citation for this?

It might be at a loss, but I don’t think it is that extravagant.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#149

Post by LilBytes »

_jab wrote: post #51
jonny_eh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “leftover” employees at Character were NOT screwed over. Options were converted to cash at the deal’s valuation. Hopefully Windsurf employees are treated well here. Note: I worked at Character until recently.

On the flipside, I’m pretty sure the investors got screwed.

Hopefully. The world is healing.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#150

Post by nilamo »

barbazoo wrote: post #8

> OpenAI’s deal to buy Windsurf is off, and Google will instead hire Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, cofounder Douglas Chen, and some of Windsurf’s R&D employees and bring them onto the Google DeepMind team, Google and Windsurf announced Friday. > Mohan and the Windsurf employees will focus on agentic coding efforts at Google DeepMind and work largely on Gemini. Google will not have any control over nor a stake in Windsurf…

Why the quotes? Consultants are indeed hired for consulting work to be done.
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